Dell is joining a growing market of thin-and-light Chrome OS laptops with the new Chromebook 11, which will initially be available only to educational institutions.

"Dell believes that when implemented successfully, teachers, students and technology work together to enrich the learning process," said Neil Hand, vice president, Tablet and Performance PC Group, Dell. "The Dell Chromebook 11 will give schools and districts another tool to consider as they plan their digital content and curriculum strategies, and its competitive pricing will help open access to technology for more students around the country."

The Dell Chromebook 11 features manageability and security with an easy to use web-based console that enables centralized configuration and tracking. The management console allows IT administrators and teachers to push or remove applications and enforce safe browsing practices across all Chromebooks in a school's network or in a specific learning environment. Automated updates and "defense in depth" security features like sandboxing, verified boot, data encryption and easy recovery block or avoid malware, viruses and data loss, saving time on maintenance and troubleshooting.

The Dell Chromebook 11 features 4th Generation Intel Celeron 2955U processor, 11.6-inch screen, up to 10-hours of battery life and 16 GB embedded Solid State Drive to facilitate a boot-time of under 8.4 seconds. The Dell Chromebook 11 will be available in two models, one which includes 4 GB of internal DDR3 RAM, and the other which includes 2 GB of RAM.

The Dell Chromebook 11 features an 11.6-inch, edge-to-edge glass screen with a resolution of 1366x768 and is powered by Intel HD Graphics. The display coupled with a front-facing 720p webcam. The device also features Dell's 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, two USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth 4.0 and an HDMI port.

With the addition of the Dell Wyse PocketCloud application, Dell Chromebook 11 users have access to content and applications across a "personal cloud" of devices. Students and teachers can access, edit, save and share their digital assets regardless of where the original documents are located. PocketCloud works across mobile devices, tablets, PCs, laptops and Chromebooks. It is integrated with the Google ecosystem and leverages the Google infrastructure to authenticate, discover and access users' content and applications. The PocketCloud app will be available for download in the Google Chrome Web Store in January 2014.

The Dell Chromebook 11 4 GB configuration will be available January 2014. The 2 GB model will be available during the first quarter of 2014. The Dell Chromebook 11 is expected to sell below $300 and will be available on www.dell.com in the United States and UK.